In the last few years, TechCrunch Disrupt has developed into one of the most anticipated hackathons-cum-tech-startup events in New York. Israel was the first country to set up a national pavilion at Disrupt, and this year too, Israeli companies are making waves at the event.

Check out the TechCrunch clip visiting the Israeli pavilion:

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Check our Aaron Herman of JCast’s visit to the Israeli start-ups at the event:

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Israel Trade & Economic Office, Embassy of Israel

May 7, 2013 - May 9, 2013
Las Vegas, Nevada

Join the Economic Mission at the National Hardware Show (NHS) in Las Vegas this May and see what Israel has to offer. The National Hardware Show is the prime time and place for face-to-face sourcing, trading and learning for the $343 billion dollar US home improvement and DIY markets. This year, 12 Israeli companies will showcase their diverse solutions, ranging from water-saving products to cleaning and disinfecting solutions, to textile recreation technologies and gardening tools. For more information on the exhibiting companies, please click here.

If you will be attending NHS and are interested in meeting any of the Israeli companies, please contact the Economic Mission.

Catalog of Companies

The Microsoft Accelerator is a four-month program that helps early stage start-ups who are doing big things in Cloud, Internet and Mobile. The program provides entrepreneurs with mentors, development tools and key elements to help grow their businesses.
On their graduation, companies will pitch to investors in Tel-Aviv and will present their new products and partnerships in the large auditorium at Microsoft campus in Mt. View, CA. The event is organized in full cooperation with the Israeli mission to the West Coast and is following the successful “Demo Day” event of the first batch of the Accelerator, held in September, 2012.

The “Launch Day” is aimed to foster future business of these startups in the US with relevant business partners and therefore is attracting many business leaders in the Valley.

More information and registration details can be found here.

The worldwide buzz around the revolutionary aluminum-air battery of the Israeli-based technology company Phinergy is reaching new peaks. Even president Obama had the chance to view the technology during his visit to Israel.

Phinergy has created a car battery that powers an electric vehicle for as long as 1,000 miles (1600 km) before needing a recharge. The Company’s  Aluminum-Air battery system has been successfully integrated into an electric vehicle resulting in more than three times the driving range of current EVs.

Aluminum is a widely available metal that is easily recycled and contains high amounts of energy (8 kilowatt-hours per kilogram).  Today, Phinergy’s Aluminum-Air battery is using air and water to unleash the vast energy stored in aluminum. The air is breathed in by a proprietary membrane – the air electrode – and the water is filled into a tank by the user, creating a holistic system that enables an Electric Vehicle to drive without having to stop other than to refuel with water every few hundred kilometers.

President Obama checks out Phinergy

President Obama had the chance to view Phinergy’s technology, among other Israeli innovative companies and technologies, during his recent visit to Israel.

Phinergy, which has been operating in stealth mode during the last few years, first publicly announced its achievements at the Israel Dealmakers Summit that was held in New York last March, in a panel chaired by Mr. Oded Distel, Head of Invest in Israel and Israel NewTech.

“I believe aluminum will become the next major sustainable energy source thanks to metal-air technology,” said Mr. Aviv Tzidon, Phinergy’s Chairman & CEO.

“Phinergy is a current example of an Israeli-based technology that has the potential to create real impact on the global energy and transportation arenas,” says Oded Distel. “We were in close contact with Phinergy during their ‘stealth years’ and knew that something very promising is going on over there. I feel very confident saying that during the next few months some more Israeli companies that have been developing technologies ‘under the radar’ will come out”.

For the full article go to the Israel NewTech blog.

Israel Trade & Economic Office, Embassy of Israel

The most ambitious project in the sphere of technology studies, and perhaps in all of higher education, in the world is being planned, and Israel’s leading technology institute, the Technion, is playing a major role in it.

Cornell and the Technion together won the prize in Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s contest to create a new science school.  According to the Technion,The Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute (TCII) is a joint venture of Technion and Cornell University, and will be a key component of the new Cornell NYC Tech campus, a unique high-tech graduate school to be established on Roosevelt Island in New York City. As conceived by Mayor Bloomberg, the goal of the entire NYC Tech campus – and the TCII within it – is to turn NYC into the high-tech capital of the world.Even though the sprawling Cornell NYC Tech campus on Roosevelt Island is still 25 years away, the New York Times recently reported that the first program is already up and running. Eight students enrolled in January in what is being called the beta class, a one-year master’s program in computer science.

Perhaps in light of this exciting project on the horizon in New York, the Times recently covered the Technion and tried to understand what is the “magic formula” which makes the Technion such a phenomenon:

“I can say without exaggeration that Israel could not have been built without the Technion,” says Yossi Vardi, who has founded or helped build more than 60 companies in Israel and has five degrees from the Technion. “There is a Technion graduate behind practically every highway, desalinization plant, new missile technology and start-up company in the country.”

This is not mere school spirit talking. According to Shlomo Maital, senior research fellow at the Samuel Neaman Institute for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology, a fourth of the university’s 60,000 alumni who are of working age have, at one time or another, initiated a business, and a fourth are C.E.O.’s or vice presidents. The annual output of graduates in high-tech industries is estimated to be at least $21 billion. Among inventions from Technion research labs: the memory stick, drip irrigation, the Parkinson’s drug rasagiline, the iron dome air defense system and instant messaging.

What stand behind the success is being debated, it could be the fact that Israeli students come out of their military service, making them more mature, it could be the “Jewish Mother” effect, or simply excellence in education.  Whatever it is, New York’s Bloomberg hopes that the Cornell NYC Tech will do for the city what the Technion has done for Haifa, and for Israel’s hi-tech industry as a whole.

For the full New York Times article click here.

Israel Trade & Economic Office, Embassy of Israel

Five of the developers of Facebook‘s ten largest social games in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) come from srael, and the company is now in Israel looking for more.

Roy Goldenberg of Globes covered Facebook’s growing interest in Israeli gaming companies:
Facebook is building on the Israeli gaming market: five of the developers of Facebook’s ten largest social games in the EMEA come from Israel. Herzliya-based Plarium  is one of the ten fastest growing games companies on Facebook worldwide.

These achievements today brought Facebook to Israel for the second time in six months to find the next game hit, and to send a clear message to Israeli gaming developers: We want you.

“Israel is a very advanced country for gaming on Facebook, Facebook head of European platform partnerships Julien Codorniou, who is heading the company’s gaming developers conference, Game On. “The last time we held this conference in Israel, 500 programmers came, making it our biggest event outside the US.”

Codorniou looks beyond gaming on Facebook, and points to Plarium as a company which symbolizes the industry’s future. “Casual games are a big hit, but we’ll see that the next thing will be hard core games, such as Plarium’s ‘Total Domination’ and ‘Stormfall’,” he says, adding that a game like “Stormfall”, which did not exist six months ago, is now one of the 20 fastest-growing games on Facebook worldwide.

Until one or two years ago, Zynga , the developer of Farmville and other games, was a byword for games of Facebook, but Codorniou says that it is now just one of the companies in the field. “The situation has changed. Today, 70% of growing gaming companies on Facebook come from Europe,” he says.

Facebook is definitely a gaming powerhouse, with more than 250 million players a month, 11% more than in 2012, making it a larger gaming platform than all games consoles combined. 130 Facebook games have more than one million active players a month, with the average gamer playing more than three games a month.

In view of the website’s success, Facebook current target is mobile. Codorniou says that for a social game to succeed it must first go through Facebook’s online platform, and then to its mobile platform, and only afterwards to Apple and Google app stores. But what might be perceived as competition against Apple and Google is actually cooperation.

“We want to be one of the biggest traffic creators for the app stores,” admits Codorniou in commenting on the possibility that mobile games developers should promote their wares on the Facebook app by a direct download key. “23% of the time people in world spend on mobile is on Facebook. There is no doubt that gaming companies want to be part of this share,” he says, adding that 80% of the top ten Android and iOS apps interface with Facebook accounts.

For the full Globes article click here.

On a visit to Paris Friday, President Shimon Peres presented an economic plan to involve multinational corporations in addressing the economic needs of developing countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Peres presented the proposal on a visit to the Paris headquarters of the  Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The organization’s secretary general praised Israel during Peres’ visit as an example to the organization’s other members. Jose Angel Gurria said Israel was an asset to the organization and singled out its economic achievements, high-tech expertise and research activity as a model for the other member states. Israel formally joined the OECD in 2010.

During the visit, Peres proposed the establishment of a new international organization comprised of major multinational companies to further economic development in the Middle East and other developing countries.

In addition to instability and terrorism, Peres pointed to unemployment as a major problem facing these countries. He said the plan would help address hunger and the lack of jobs.

The president’s plan calls for the OECD to coordinate and promote development and economic investment projects, infrastructure projects and technological innovations in the Middle East and other developing countries through the involvement of the multinational firms.

Peres said Israel was an example of a country that is able to prosper despite a relative lack of natural resources by investing in technology.

He added that Israel would be pleased to share its expertise.
For the full Haaretz article click here.

Tel Aviv has been ranked the world’s second “most innovative city” as part of the Wall Street Journal magazine and Citibank’s City of the Year contest, organized by the non-profit Urban Land Institute.

According to YnetNews, Tel Aviv was among the three cities which made it to the final out of 200. The winner was Medellin in Colombia. New York City came in third. The results were determined by online voters and Urban Land Institute judges.

Tel Aviv’s achievements in the fields of technology, high-tech and research were mentioned as the reasons for its inclusion in the competition.

According to Leslie Braunstein in Urban Land’s website, Israel’s seaside metropolis “has emerged as a global hub of technological innovation. Home to thousands of homegrown startups as well as outposts of American giants such as Google and Microsoft, Tel Aviv’s technology corridor, dubbed the ‘Silicon Wadi’ (employing the Arabic word for valley), is ranked just behind California’s Silicon Valley in worldwide importance.

The municipality is currently working on a unique strategic move, which will allow residents to choose their favored means of communication and receive municipal services in digital form. The project includes a free citywide Wi-Fi scheme, a mobile application, a geographic information system (GIS) on new infrastructure, an app development competition, online licensing, social networks, and more.

With more than 700 startup companies and research and development centers, Tel Aviv is considered Israel’s “startup city.” The Tel Aviv Municipality recently launched a strategic program to position the metropolis as an international center of innovation and creativity.

“We are working to create a startup visa for foreign entrepreneurs, increasing the number of international students in the metropolis, opening work spaces for technological entrepreneurs, and more,” says Tel Aviv Deputy Mayor Asaf Zamir.

In transportation, the Tel-o-Fun bike share project is underway and the city will be the first in the world to host a pilot of the SkyTran podcar system, developed by NASA. An electric car rental system is also being considered.

The latest achievement joins a series of titles won by the city recently: The Capital of Mediterranean Cool (by the New York Times), one of the world’s top 50 global cities (Foreign Policy), one of the world’s fastest-growing cities (Forbes), one of the world’s best beach cities (National Geographic), and one of the world’s 10 best cities for architecture lovers (CondeNast).

Tel Aviv was also ranked fifth in Mastercard’s list of the 10 most toured cities in the Middle East and Africa. It was also voted the Best Gay City of 2011 in an international American Airlines competition.
For the full YnetNews article click here.

Israel Trade & Economic Office, Embassy of Israel

The market for children’s and educational apps continues to grow — evidenced by Apple last week announcing 1 billion downloads of educational apps from iTunes U — and that growth is leading to both consolidation and new business models. In one of the latest developments, TabTale, a publisher of children’s and family apps, has bought Kids Games Club, maker of apps like “Paint Sparkles”, in a deal that TechCrunch understands was in the region $3 million – $4 million. Together, the two Israel-based companies have produced nearly 200 apps, covering close to 100 million downloads. That makes it one of the bigger publishers of youth/family apps around, says TabTale CEO Sagi Schliesser.

Schliesser says that the two companies were both profitable before the acquisition, and that they’re both still at an early stage of growth. “We’ll be disappointed if we only make $10 million in revenue this year,” he said.

Although both TabTale and Kids Games Club are focused on a young audience, the two are actually complementary: TabTale, as its name implies, focuses largely on tablet apps and stories, while Kids Games Club makes — you guessed it — lots of games and educational interactive content, largely designed for smartphones.

Both are mainly focused on iOS apps, although TabTale’s newer business on the Android platform, Schliesser says, will reach 5 million downloads this year. Similarly, although up to now both have been mainly aimed at apps for under-12s, now they are looking to extend that to users in the 12-18 year-old bracket. The idea is to follow their users’ as they get older but and to try to “keep our DNA via things like ‘nice’ arcade games,” says Schliesser.

And just as an audience matures, so does the business of apps, and that is leading to TabTale exploring new revenue models. Up to now, the companies’ apps have been a mix of ad-free, paid downloads and free, ad-supported apps. But now that they have a sizeable catalogue, the two are also working on something new: subscription models, based on the idea of book clubs, where users paid a monthly fee for a certain number of apps.

There are a couple of reasons to consider a book-club-style model. For one, it would create a consistent and predictable revenue stream by way of repeat subscriptions — something we’ve seen extend to other areas of e-commerce like fashion by way of companies like JustFab. Additionally, it would be to help promote some of the newer or lesser-known content in its catalogue — such as some of its song books and educational games. (Not unlike a book club.) It is also a model being explored by other kids’ app makers like Playtales and follows the usage pattern that TabTale sees across its catalog already.

“We see users downloading between eight and ten apps every month, and we believe that children want diversity, so this kind of thing would be good,” said Schliesser. On platforms like iOS, the “club” would run through Apple’s iTunes, and work not unlike in-app subscriptions. He says that he believes it will take another business quarter to get it into place.

For the full article go to TechCrunch.